I move the stars for no one
by SomeLibraryRando
Summary: The only way to kill an immortal is to ask another immortal... Killian Jones wishes himself into the Underground to find the King of the Goblins and beg a boon. Instead he finds the king and his subjects gone, and in their place a strange and compelling creature who seems to want something of him. Dark!Swan/Captain Hook Labyrinth Crossover (The Orphan of Arcadia Series)


**This is the first of three stories in the series that I call the "Orphan of Arcadia." This one posted in three parts on AO3 during Captain Swan AU week in 2016. The second is a sexy one-shot called "It's only forever, not long at all," and the last, which is publishing now, is called The Stars that Listen.**

**Please enjoy!**

* * *

The click of Captain Hook's bootheel echoed off the high flagstone ceiling as he stepped into the wide, empty throne room.

He had expected a court of shrieking, laughing, swarming, singing goblins awaiting him in the castle of the Underground, but the room appeared, at first glance, to be empty and- save for his own steps and rapidly beating heart- silent.

Halfway across the room, however, he saw that upon the black throne there was a figure whose black garments made it nearly invisible. The pale face and nearly white-blonde hair were the only features distinguishable against the unrelieved dark.

Hook bowed deeply at the waist. He was a proud man, but he knew that it was suicide to be so in the presence of such a creature.

"I come in all humility to beg a boon of the King of the Goblins," he said, keeping his waist bent and his eyes on the floor. His voice seemed to echo from every corner of the room, too loud in that huge, empty space.

"You come seeking Jareth?"

Hook straightened to find the throne unoccupied and the creature which had been on it was close- closer than a human could have come, and silent as an owl on the wing.

He had expected flamboyance and found himself looking at restraint. The dark King, whose magic sparkled from his very clothes and hair, who moved as though dancing and spoke as though singing was not the creature standing before Hook in the centre of the throne room.

She was small and slim, her white-blonde hair tightly restrained in a simple style that left her pale face starkly visible. She was nearly colourless. Her clothing was black from the pointed tips of her boots to the high collar of her coat, to the ends of her gloved fingers. Were it not for the fresh-blood colour of her unsmiling lips and the flash of unearthly green of her eyes, she might have been a drawing of pen and ink against the grey walls of the palace.

Hook watched her warily. There was no diamond-sparkle of magic in the air around this woman as there was said to be of the ruler of the Underground, but there was a sheen- a slight gilding of silver on her skin as though she were made of ice rather than flesh.

He wondered, in a strange, distracting portion of his mind, whether she would be cold to the touch.

She raised one pale eyebrow and he realized that she had asked him a question.

"I did come expecting Jareth, aye," he said, with a slight nod. "Is he here? Are you his… Lady?"

The red mouth moved as though in a smile, though the smooth skin of her face seemed scarcely to shift and her eyes remained as cold as they had been from the first moment he had seen and recognized her for what she was.

"Jareth abdicated his throne many years ago. You should bless your luck that he is gone and that I remain, however. You would very much not have been to his… tastes."

A shiver went down Hook's spine at that. He had never really believed the tales of the fair folk eating humans, but here in the ominous silence of a castle that fairly shimmered with fae magic, he found it hard to disbelieve anything.

"And your _tastes_, my lady?" he asked.

The odd smile widened and a glint of sharp white teeth sparked between the red lips.

"You may be precisely what I like, Captain Hook."

Hook bowed his head in acknowledgment of the lady's knowledge.

"You have the advantage of me, my lady. Will you grant me a name?"

For the first time, her eyes seemed alive in her face as the smile widened and she laughed.

"No, no. Names are funny things here in the Ancient Realm. They have power, but only when gifted, you see. I may _know_ your true name, Captain, and I do, but I cannot use it, nor does it give me any power over you, save you offer it to me. It must be freely given, or else carefully tricked away. You may call me anything you like."

She turned on her heel and walked back up the centre of the room to her throne. She said nothing, but Hook followed in her wake until she reached the raised dais and stepped onto it. She turned to face him before resuming her dark throne.

"Have a seat, Captain," she said, with a tiny flick of her wrist and what appeared to be the chair from his cabin on the Jolly Roger popped into being before him.

Hook glared at it in distrust. "I think I prefer to stand," he said, returning his eyes to her face.

She shrugged. "As you like, my dear. So you have come to beg a boon of the Goblin King, have you? You know, of course, that no gift can be granted in this realm save that it is paid for."

It was not a question, but Hook answered as though it were. "Aye, my lady. I am prepared to pay."

"Are you?" she said, sounding surprised and faintly amused. "You do not know the price I would ask. You are a wealthy pirate, with a hold full of treasure, but I care little for mortal gold. You have no lover whose life might be forfeit, no brother I might marry, no child I might steal. There are those of my kind who might give you your desire for the blue of your eyes or a lock of your hair or the final beat of your heart, but I care little for such trifles. What payment do you think you might give me? Would the boon you have in mind be worth, for instance, your right hand?"

Hook balled his only remaining hand into a fist, but kept silent. He had thought he'd known what to expect from the Goblin King, Jareth, but this creature was obviously different. Equally beautiful. Equally terrible. Equally dangerous. Wholly unknown.

"But no, Captain Hook wished himself into the Underground, did he not? Were he willing to pay naught but gold, he might have tried the shining courts of the Summer Kingdom. Or, if it were a kiss with which he would pay, the star-spun reaches of the Night Court. You wished yourself here, however, and here you thought to pay your price. You think to run the Labyrinth, do you?"

"I would prove myself against it, aye," Hook said beginning to feel that he was out of his depth.

The woman threw back her head and shrieked with laughter. "Prove yourself? Is that what you think the Labyrinth did? Proved the worth of the runner? No, my silly mortal, the Labyrinth was the toll paid to the king for his favor, or didn't you know that?"

Hook opened his mouth, but closed it again, unsure what to say.

"It took, the Labyrinth did. It siphoned off those things that the king desired most from each runner and distilled them like the finest liquor, and Jareth's Labyrinth… you, Captain Hook, would never survive."

Hook's spine stiffened. "You do me a disservice, Lady," he said through clenched teeth, fighting his instinct to rudeness and sarcasm. "I am nothing if not a survivor."

She gave a disbelieving huff of breath through her nose. "In your realm, perhaps, but these are different lands. I have no taste for the death of mortals. I shall send you away now."

"No!" Hook cried stilling the hand she had raised. "Let me try. If I die, what harm does it do you?"

"I shall have to clean up the mess."

Hook looked around. "Have you no servants, no subjects?"

Her face went oddly distant. "I do not. The goblins followed their king, leaving only the land to me- the palace and the crumbling labyrinth. I think I would have as little taste for ruling as I have for mortal death. No, I think I will not allow you to do it."

"Is it because you haven't the power to grant my boon?"

"You think to insult my power rather than taking the mercy I extend?" The woman did not appear angry or insulted, merely surprised. "I have the power to kill your enemy, or raise your loved one from the dead, cure your disease, or even make you ruler of all your realm, should I like. I should send you to the labyrinth and your death merely for your insolence."

"You rule an empty kingdom from inside an empty castle- surely a soul running your labyrinth would give you some entertainment."

She seemed to hesitate on this argument for a moment before shaking her head. "I have already told you, I have no taste for death."

"So make it a wager instead!" Hook cried, finally seeing his way clear. "If I am set to die, you may save me and I will owe you a forfeit instead. If I survive your labyrinth, then you owe me one." He grinned, meeting the surprised green eyes of the woman on the throne above him.

"You think you have something that I might want, Mortal?"

Hook shrugged. "Have I?"

She frowned for a long moment, as though staring through him, seeing deep into the heart of him. Hook stood beneath this scrutiny, still and sure as he could force himself to be.

"You might, Captain," she said softly. "You just might. It is decided then- you shall run my labyrinth, and I shall assure that you do not die and make a mess. If I must save your life, you owe me a forfeit of my choosing, and if you do survive and I am not forced to save you, I shall grant you your request. Is it agreed?"

Hook turned her words over and over in his mind, searching for a loophole. He had been fed the ways and warnings of the fae with his mother's milk and was ready for tricks.

When he could find none, Hook nodded. "Agreed."

"And so it shall be."

Hook felt a strange shimmer to the air which seemed to coalesce and settle around his heart.

The woman gave another flick of her wrist and Hook was suddenly engulfed in smoke that was neither light nor dark, but the silvery grey of moonlight.

-?-?-?-?-

"He went! You did it!"

The Lady turned to find the tousle-haired moppet she'd inherited all-unknowing with the rest of the Underground appearing from behind the door where he had obviously been listening.

An expression that would have surprised Captain Hook took over her face. It was a smile- a proper one, with all of its warmth and sweetness. The kind that crinkles the eyes and displays the teeth and makes the nose scrunch appealingly. It turned her cold Fae face into something very nearly human.

"But why did you say he couldn't? You needed him to go, didn't you? Why threaten to send him home?"

The Lady laughed. "If I have learned anything about humans, Henry, and men in particular, it is that the moment you tell them that there is something that they cannot do, it becomes the very thing they must do. I thought that nothing would ensure our new friend's survival quite as well as telling him that he would not survive."

The boy frowned and she reached out to run a hand over his silky brown hair. He had been ten when he had mistakenly wished himself into the labyrinth and, in spite of their years together, he remained ten still.

"Perhaps you'll understand when you're older," she said with an odd, sad smile. As a mortal, Henry could not feel the passage of years in the Underground the way that she could. He did not know that in his realm, he should have long since been a man grown, but she did.

She regretted the world she had stolen from him in her selfishness and cowardice. All of the adventures he would miss, the loves he would never love, never lose, and never learn to grow from. For all of the things that she did not have and could not feel, she still knew regret.

"Come then, Henry. You look like you could use some food, and then we can watch as our new friend tries his hand with the maze. I was promised entertainment, and we must be sure that I know if I need to save him."

Henry seemed pleased enough with this plan and led the way to the kitchen. The Lady blessed her luck that Henry came from a world that had long since forgotten the stories of her people and was, therefore, not forced to convince him that the food in her larder was benign. She would not force Henry to stay through enchantment- he had asked to stay at her side and she had agreed, upon finding out that no mother would mourn his loss. She became, then, his mother and he helped to soothe her incurable loneliness.

The Kitchen of the palace of the Underground had once been filled with filth and Goblins. Whether the Goblins had believed themselves to be cooks and scullions and servants, without them around it became clear that the Kitchen's magic could handle itself much better without interference, particularly for such a small household as remained in the wake of the King's abdication.

The Lady who, like all of her kind, ate and drank little for need, would perhaps have ignored the kitchen entirely, but Henry had come to her and, upon finding him, she had brought him straight away to the kitchen, her own magic pouring out of her in her fear and beseeching the magic already in the walls to do something to help her save the pale lad she had found lost, broken, and starved in the labyrinth.

The Kitchen had come to both of their aid that day, and since that time it had been, in the Lady's mind, the true heart of the castle- not the throne room.

Henry loved the Kitchen and amused the Lady no end as he begged the magic in the walls to create foods from his own realm that he missed. He said that the pizza was pretty good, though he and the magic of the room were still working out the finer points of macaroni and cheese. The Lady found that she was fond of grilled cheese sandwiches, to Henry's great amusement. The Kitchen's _pièce de résistance _was waiting for them on the table when they arrived, the room having anticipated them.

"Peanut butter and jelly," Henry mumbled happily through a mouthful of this concoction.

The Lady smiled at him and tapped a fingertip atop the apple sitting beside his place, which caused it to fall into a dozen even sections without a hint of pith or seed in a single one.

The Kitchen could supply any food from nearly any realm save peaches. The Lady had banned the place serving the fruits that grew in the twisting orchard behind the palace. Her magic was sufficient to make benign any other food, but those trees had been grown by the Goblin King himself in his darkest days, and the Lady thought that they would never be safe.

There was a sandwich, glass of milk, and apple at a second place waiting for the Lady, but she did not sit to join Henry right away. Instead she bustled through the kitchen in a move that was shockingly domestic for a Faerie. From a cupboard she withdrew a shallow silver bowl which she placed in the centre of the scrubbed-wood table which, with a flick of one of her fingers, began to fill with crystal-clear water.

Henry watched this process with interest but no fear as he had seen it many times before. The pair of them had used her scrying bowl to scour the realms for someone who might be able to save her, and once they had found the Captain, they had watched him for weeks until he had succumbed to temptation and wished himself to the Underground.

"When he wins," Henry began, but the Lady put up a chiding finger to stop him.

"Do not speak with your mouth full, young man," she said, staring deeply into the bowl.

Henry swallowed and tried again.

"When he wins he's going to ask you to kill Rumplestiltskin."

"Perhaps," the Lady said, continuing to stare into the water which was beginning to look cloudy though it had been as clear as glass only a moment before. "I thought he might end up asking me to raise his lover from the dead, though I do hope not- such wishes never end well."

She did not look up to see it, but the Lady could imagine Henry's face taking on that stubborn set that she found so endearingly mortal. She wondered, sometimes, if the look came from his father or mother or if it was wholly his own.

"I think he's going to ask you to kill Rumplestiltskin," he said, and she could tell from his tone that she had guessed right about his face. "Will you be able to do it?"

The image in the bowl coalesced into picture suddenly, clear as a window- Captain Hook standing at the far entrance to the Labyrinth.

"I made a promise, Henry, and creatures like me cannot lie. Even if I hadn't the power, that very fact would make it possible for me to kill him, if it is what the pirate asks."

"I'm sure you _can_, but you don't like killing."

The Lady sighed. She loved Henry for his trust in her, and his gentle sensitivity. She knew well enough that not all humans were so. There was a reason that the High Fae took joy in killing mortals, and she might have been in sympathy with her brethren if not for Henry and his unwavering belief.

She watched the pirate walk toward the entrance to her maze and felt her belly clench in anticipation.

"I don't," she agreed, quietly. "But I promised."

And besides, she thought to herself, not wanting to say anything to Henry, once she knew who she was, perhaps she _did _like killing mortals.

The Lady had never appreciated her amnesia before, but as she watched the pirate in the scrying glass disappear through the walls of the labyrinth, believing as Henry did that Hook was the one who could break her curse, she wondered for the first time if she wasn't better off as she was- no memory, no history, no regret.

~?~?~?~?~

"Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me."

Captain Hook's hand was not his own as it held his copy of Sarah Williams' memoirs, nor was his voice, even as he could feel his jaw working as he read the words before him. He could not move independently, could hardly even think independently.

He could feel his mind racing through possibilities- Jareth might kill him on the spot, he not being a young woman, sweet and fair. He might die in the Labyrinth. Or, even if he did not die, Jareth might send him straight away, uninterested in centuries-old men and revenge.

Some tiny fragment of his mind swore that he'd made it, and that Jareth had not been there- instead there had been a Lady of the Fae who had promised him death, and with whom he had made a deal, but his mind seemed locked into the paths he had traveled already once that day.

"The only way to kill an immortal is to ask another immortal," he murmured against his will, even as he took a step across the cabin to the porthole that looked out on the tiny natural harbour where he had anchored the Jolly Roger.

His men were in port for a week's leave- no one would notice he was gone. If he never returned from the court of the Fair Folk, his men would find work aboard other ships. It saddened him to think of his crew scattered to the winds. In two-hundred-odd years, they had become family. Brothers, as Liam had once been.

If not for Liam, he might have asked Pan- another immortal, evil soul. But he couldn't trust Pan. He couldn't trust Jareth either, but he knew far better what to expect from the Goblin King than the Lord of Neverland.

The small part of Hook's mind that was trapped in a body going through the motions that he had already gone through was screaming that he did not know what he was getting himself into, but still his mind moved onward, along roads he had tread and would tread.

"I wish," he murmured, turning back to his desk and looking at the slim, leather-bound volume sitting on top. It had been his since childhood and he'd always wondered what had happened to Sarah Williams when she had escaped the Labyrinth.

"I wish," he began again, and the trapped part of himself in his mind screamed the words, seemingly pounding itself against the wall of inevitability.

"I wish," he murmured a third time, and all seemed to stand still. The sea stopped lapping against the wood of the ship. The wind stopped blowing, the sea birds stopped crying. All stood in wait.

"I wish to go to the Underground, to the castle beyond the Goblin City."

Hook fell to his knees on the stones, his head pounding, his knees aching, his throat burning as though he _had _been shrieking at himself everything that he hadn't been able to think.

He look several long, deep gulps of air that tasted nothing of the sea before slowly bringing his head up to look around.

On every side of him were tall, grey stone walls. Beneath his knees were more grey slabs. Unlike Sarah's descriptions, the stones of this Labyrinth were a smooth light grey and fitted together with only the narrowest of seams. The path was the same featureless smoothness as the walls- no lichen, no vines, no life at all, only dead, sterile stone.

Turning around, he could not see the gap that had provided him entrance, only an unrelieved silver wall. Ahead of him was a corridor that seemed to stretch to infinity.

He pushed himself to his feet, fury beginning to cloud his vision, cloud his thoughts. "This is not the Labyrinth I know. This wasn't our deal, Witch! This wasn't what you promised me!"

"You thought you could cheat the Labyrinth because you'd read Sweet Sarah's maunderings?"

The voice came from behind him and Hook spun on his heel to find the Lady standing there in a dissipating cloud of smoke the colour of starlight.

"You said I would run the-"

"I said you would run _my _labyrinth, Captain," she bit off, interrupting him. "I told you that Jareth's labyrinth would _kill _you."

"A game that could be beaten by a child-"

"Yes a child's game, did you not hear me before, you mortal fool? The Labyrinth siphons off those things that its master most craves. Even if I wished, I could not stop it taking what I want, and what Jareth wanted- what Jareth lusted for was _innocence_."

There was a breathless silence between them for a moment.

"Sarah-" Hook said, but was cut off yet again.

"Sarah Williams was as ripe and innocent as a fresh peach, Captain."

She held out her hand where a peach sat, a single bite taken out and the centre putrid with decay, for all the flesh and skin were pristine.

"You are very brave, and very clever, and very old, and I believe that you can survive nearly anything," she said, and if Hook hadn't known better, he might have thought her voice was sad. "But you are no longer an innocent, and Jareth's labyrinth would have sucked you dry. Thank the stars and the stones you came to me."

She vanished then, in that same cloud of silvery smoke, the peach dropping to the stones and bursting in a small explosion of rot and sickly-sweet smell.

"And what is it that your maze gathers, my Lady?" he murmured, turning around again to face the seemingly endless and featureless corridor. "What is it that I have in abundance that you so want?"

~?~?~?~?~

"Did you break the rules, going there? Talking to him?" Henry asked when the Lady reappeared next to him in the Kitchen.

"No," she, and sighed, pleased to hear the word pass her lips. As a Fae, she could not lie, not to a mortal, so she knew that if she could say it, it must be true.

Her deal with the Captain stood.

~?~?~?~?~

Hook felt as though he had walked down the same corridor for an hour, but it never seemed to get shorter, and nothing ever seemed to break from it. He recalled from Sarah's book that she'd believed the same of her own first corridor, only to find that if she'd looked more carefully, she'd have seen a changing path.

He was now sure that he wasn't in Sarah's labyrinth, but it didn't mean he couldn't follow her advice, but as he tried to find hidden paths, the walls remained as solid as ever.

"Forward it is then," he murmured to himself. If her labyrinth gathered patience, she might learn he had a deep well of it.

After some time which might have been minutes or hours or days in that featureless, unchanging space, he noticed something change.

Rather that the eternal noiseless sound that had pressed on his ears since the first moment, broken only by the sound of his breaths and his steps, he began to hear what sounded like music.

After a few more steps, he decided that yes, yes it was music. Someone ahead of him was humming and, though he couldn't swear to it, he thought that perhaps the voice was familiar.

He took one more step and suddenly all was dark, and he was warm and safe, and he was surrounded by softness and music and he had always been so. Nothing else had ever been his life but warmth and song.

The part of his mind that had, moments before, been standing in the featureless half-light of the labyrinth could make out the words of the song being sung.

_The day may come some day, my love_

_That finds you far from home_

_Recall your mother's words my love_

_To protect you as you roam_

_Eat nothing offered you, my love_

_In lands of summer fair_

_Though hunger gnaws your bones, my love_

_Their food will trap you there_

_Beautiful are they, my love_

_The fair and fickle folk_

_Hungry too are they, my love_

_And would eat you in a gulp_

_No lies may cross their lips, my love_

_Though truth is e'er their bane_

_Trust nothing that they say, my love_

_Trickery floods their veins_

_So where you go, keep safe, my love_

_For dangers lie ahead_

_But now, this night, you're here, my love_

_Safe in your own small bed_

His eyes opened and there, hovering above him was a face that he could have sworn he did not remember. Her hair was the colour of old honey, curled about her face in loose waves. Her mouth smiled, crinkling the skin around eyes that were as blue as the sun-lit sea. Like his.

He'd always been told he had his mother's eyes.

"_I love you, my sweet Killian. I love you so_," she whispered, and her mouth came down to his forehead and all was darkness again.

He could feel the hardness of stone beneath his knees again, but he kept his eyes squeezed shut as tears poured down his face.

"Funny, isn't it? How some realms remember the stories and some don't?"

Hook opened his eyes. He was still in his own, present mind, but before him, rather than featureless stone, stood a woman with silver hair and a long, heavy, utilitarian brown cloak.

Hook was on his feet in an instant. He had no weapons (another rule of the Fae, the echoes of which came to him now in the voice that seemed newly seared into his ears) but he held his hook out in warning.

"She had it right, your mother. Mostly anyway," the old woman said, seeming unconcerned with the silver hook that he was brandishing. "The food is usually enchanted, but you needn't worry at the castle here. And it's true they can't lie, the Ancient Ones. She didn't tell you that they can tell when you're lying though. And they don't eat people. But your mother was trying to keep you safe, and that's what mothers are meant to do."

"I don't remember my mother," Hook said, stiffly, continuing to watch the woman as if she might jump upon him in a moment.

That made the old woman smile. "Everyone remembers their mother, lad, even if they don't know it. The Fae even remember their mothers, though they pretend they don't. Hers is nearly always the first face you see that looks at you with pure love. It's always in there, Killian."

Hook could feel something crack and begin to bleed vicious black poison in the vicinity of his heart.

~?~?~?~?~

"Do you think that's true?"

Something in Henry's voice made the Lady look up from the scrying glass to find him unwilling to meet her unearthly green eyes with his own soft brown ones.

"It's only… I don't think I'd want to remember my mother. She gave me away, and mothers aren't supposed to do that."

Concern crossed the Lady's face, making it look very-nearly human.

"Henry," she said, reaching out and taking his hand, able to feel the warmth of his small, human body with its rapidly-beating heart through the fine leather of her glove. "Henry, sweetling, your mother _did_ love you."

As the words came from her mouth, his eyes met hers finally, an odd look of desperate hope in them which lanced across the Lady's heart like lightning.

"Then why give me away?" he asked.

"She only wanted what was best for you, Henry. She wanted only to give you your very best chance, and she thought it wasn't with her."

His eyes glittered. "How do you know?" he whispered, his voice thick.

She smiled, an odd, uncertain half-smile. "I didn't, but I love you and it's the only reason I can think of to have given you up. But I can't lie, so you know it's true."

"And… and you think I remember her? Somewhere, somehow? Back at the beginning of my memories?"

"Well… if Granny Lucas says it's so, then it must be so."

Henry frowned at that. "Who is Granny Lucas?"

The Lady flicked her fingers at the scrying bowl where the pirate and the old lady were still circling one-another like strange cats.

"So who is she?" Henry asked. "I've never seen her before."

"She's-" the Lady began, then stopped. "I… I don't know who she is. I just know her name is Granny Lucas and if she tells you something, it's probably true."

~?~?~?~?~

"I was told no creature here could use my name save that it was gifted or tricked away," Hook growled. He did not approach the creature that looked like an old woman, not yet knowing of what it was capable. "How come you to have that name? What trickery- what witchcraft is this?"

The lady grinned. "Those rules only apply to the fae, lad, not me. I learn names the same way anyone else does- by introduction and listening."

The Captain lowered his hook slightly, frowning in confusion. "If you're not a faerie, then what are you?"

The woman shrugged. "Same as anything else in this old maze. I'm a memory."

Hook's left arm dropped as everything seemed to come together in a rush. The Labyrinth was a focus for memory, and the Lady had been right- he had memories. More memories than most living people, save the Fae themselves. Two-hundred years and more's worth. Even- he glanced behind him, knowing the blue-eyed woman wouldn't be there but hoping against hope all the same- memories he wouldn't have believed he had.

He wondered what an immortal being who might have many centuries on him in terms of years would need with his few hundred years worth of memories.

And another thing didn't make sense-

"You're not my memory," he told the old lady, glaring at her. "Unless you're buried so far back like… like others."

She smiled. "No, lad, I'm not your memory at all. This maze has been around for some time, ever since Herself up at the castle came and the Labyrinth began to rebuild itself in her image. I was one of the first, the trouble is that I'm not sure where I belong."

Hook frowned. "Where you belong?"

She nodded. "Memories like me, we fit into time and place- like your mother or your ship. The memory is built around a whole world of connected memories, some strong, some weak, but all fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle to create a whole picture. Me though, and the rest of us here… we don't have our interlocking pieces. If we belong together, it's not side-by-side, and the stuff between is missing. So we just drift about the maze, sometimes seeing each other. We don't know each other here. Maybe we do where we belong, but not here."

He nodded not sure he understood, but willing to accept the woman's words for the moment. "Do you know the way out?"

That question seemed to amuse her. She gestured down the path that seemed to go on forever. "It's like life, Killian. Keep moving forward and don't give into despair."

Sometime while they had been talking she had moved closer to him. Close enough to touch. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, then shoved him in the direction she had just indicated, nearly face-first into yet another memory.

~?~?~?~?~

Killian's eyes fluttered open. His head was pounding, his nose was full of the smell of rotting fish and unwashed men, and the floor beneath him moved lazily in a way that spoke more of rum in his blood than waves beneath the deck.

And before his eyes, slightly blurry, was Liam's disappointed face.

The Killian who was drunk and tired closed his eyes on his brother's countenance, while the Killian who hadn't seen his brother's face in centuries screamed at himself to open them.

He did not, and Liam let out an annoyed sigh.

"Drunk again, are you, Little Brother?"

Killian cracked a single eye and the older version drank in the sight of his brother's living face.

"_Younger_ Brother," Killian corrected, then closed his eye again.

He could feel Liam settle heavily on the deck beside him but did not look again. His brother's disappointment was something with which he was extremely familiar.

"So you spent the entire night out drinking and whoring, did you?" Liam asked, a note of distaste in his voice.

The question sparked a vague memory in Killian's brain and, in spite of the way his head pounded fit to burst, he sat up, suddenly fully awake.

"Not at all, brother dearest," he said, excited. "I have solved all of our problems, in fact!"

Liam said nothing to this bold pronouncement, only raised a single sandy eyebrow in skeptical surprise. Killian ignored this skepticism, however and continued speaking.

"While you remained aboard kissing Captain Silver's arse and being a good lad, I went to the local tavern and put my small wages to good use at the dice table."

Liam sighed and leaned back. "You always lose at dice, Killian."

"Not last night!" Killian declared. "Last night I won. I won thirty silver pieces and three gold- more than enough to buy us our freedom from that bastard, Silver." He grinned and reached to his belt where his hand met empty air where there should have been a purse. "Where-" he began, confused, but was cut off by his brother.

"And let me guess, Little Brother," Liam continued, annoyed. "You chose to celebrate your good fortune with rum. Enough rum to have you stumbling home, the mercy of every pickpocket and brigand in the town. Sound familiar?"

"I wouldn't have-" Killian began, but Liam put up his hand, halting him again.

"One of the crewmen was just crowing about his own wins at the tavern last night. Twenty five silver and three gold. I take it five of the silver went into the pocket of the innkeeper for drinks? You were cheated, my lad, besides having been robbed."

"I'll kill him!" Killian growled, his hand going to the knife that lived at his side.

"You'll do nothing of the sort. This is a hard lesson you deserve to have been taught. You're always looking for the quickest way to get what you want, Killian, and that's not how the world works. It's hard work and dedication that will win you the day. That's what the gods reward."

Killian just glared at his brother, while the man he would someday become felt an odd, bittersweet nostalgia.

Liam had always believed that the world was black and white- that there was goodness and evil, and nothing between. That there were heroes and villains and that good things came to those who did good.

In two-hundred years, Killian had learned the lie of this a thousand times over. The world was full of moral ambiguity and shades of grey that his brother had never allowed into his worldview.

The thought of shades of grey made Killian think, suddenly, of the palace of the Underground and the Lady who, for all her apparent starkness, surrounded herself with an array of subtle shadow and light. From her throne room, to her palace, to her labyrinth, to the very colour of her magic, she was a study in greys and silvers.

As he fell out of the memory and back into his present, he wondered that she would be on his mind.

~?~?~?~?~

Killian blinked awake. The light was that silver-blue half-light of pre-dawn, and he was on the Jolly Roger, master of his domain as ever.

He turned on his side and felt his face fall into what he was sure was a look of pure, puppy-dog devotion as he saw the woman at his side. He didn't mind, for there was no one but her to see, and she was mistress of every part of him, including those soft, private moments where the villainous pirate fell away, and the passionate heart of the man he'd been born could show on his face.

She was asleep, and Killian indulged himself by just looking at her. When waking, the weight of cares was heavy on her, adding years to her face and posture, but in sleep she was a maid of 16- untouched by the evils of the world.

As a representative of those evils, however, he found it impossible for her to remain untouched and allowed the fingers of his left hand to trail from her collarbone down over her pearly-smooth skin to the brown tip of her breast which puckered appealingly at his lightest touch. He thought she was still asleep, and he knew he was waking her, but he could do no other. His hands were no longer his own.

Down from the slope of her breast, he found the sensitive underside and grazed it with one callused thumb, then began a slow meander over the expanse of her stomach, raising the fine hairs into goosebumps in his wake. He felt the muscles move under his hand as she took in one deep breath, even as he continued moving his hand inexorably down to the place where an arrow of dark brown hair pointed the way to heaven.

He glanced up to find a slit of silver showing under long, dark lashes, even as his fingers found their goal. The eyes went wide in surprise and dark with desire.

"Milah," he breathed.

~?~?~?~?~

The Lady glanced at her young charge, pleased to find that he had fallen asleep with his head on the table, his hot chocolate only half-drunk.

It is not in the nature of the Fae to find sex shameful, and yet there was some obscure part of the Lady's makeup that thought that perhaps ten was too young for such education.

She tapped a finger on the edge of the scrying bowl, making it vanish in a puff of silver smoke and rounded the table to where Henry was. She scooped him into her arms- the preternatural strength of her kind making it easy to do- and smiled as he sighed in his sleep and rested his head on her shoulder. The boy's human warmth seeped through the Lady's black clothes and seemed to touch her cold, faerie heart in a way that should have been beneath her.

Once Henry was laid to sleep in his bed, the Lady entered her spell room. It was a vast room- larger, by far, than logic allowed, given the castle's design- where the scrying bowl sat on a table in the centre. She glanced into it to find the pirate still at his pleasure with his lady, and turned away with an odd desire to give them privacy.

A man's bed should be his own, she thought, even- or especially- within the confines of his memories.

The room was huge and neatly organized- far more so than one would expect from a den of faerie magic. In this corner, a crumbling book, open to a certain page with the shimmer of magic in the air nearly a foot above the paper. Across a wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves of tiny bottles, bags, and bundles, each one carefully labeled. Another wall was given over almost entirely to a huge window that looked out over the Labyrinth, and in the opposite corner from the book stood an apparatus, not unlike a small distillery, that glowed with faerie light and swirled with weird color and shape.

The Lady crossed to the book as though drawn to it.

_A spell to return memory_, it read at the top in the peculiar runic script of ancient magic. The Lady ran her finger down the list of ingredients, checking them off in her head, though she had done it a thousand times before.

A baby's first laugh. A maid's final breath. A curl of hair from a child born out of wedlock. A flower plucked of its petals by a girl hoping to divine her future husband. An apple bitten and forgotten. A tear of loss. A courtesan's eyelash. The night-time emissions of a holy man.

Every item had been found, traded, borrowed, or stolen save for the last one- 200 years of memories from a single mortal. It was, of course meant to be impossible. That was, after all, the point of magic.

Another faerie might have stolen a mortal child- like Henry- and kept him with her for 200 years, siphoning off his memories even as they were made. The Lady, however, could not stomach such torture. Still, mortals did not live two hundred years- such magic was beyond them, and if they had stolen or been granted the magic of the Fae, they were not quite mortal any more.

The Lady glanced over at the scrying glass again. It had been Henry who had pointed out that longevity might not be a boon, but a curse, which idea had led them to the pirate.

She glanced in and away again, impressed with the mortal's stamina, if annoyed by his slowness and moved to the great window overlooking the maze to wait the captain out.

~?~?~?~?~

When he returned to himself, Hook wasn't sure whether he was pathetically grateful or blindingly furious for having re-lived the memory with Milah. To see her again was both blessing and curse. He had loved her so, with the horizon in her eyes and the weight of guilt on her shoulders. They had talked so many times of children- her son Baelfire and other children someday, if the gods allowed- but it had all been stolen from them in a single flash of a blade.

Normally thoughts of Milah brought up his old hatred of the Crocodile, but as he stood still, not ready for the next memory his step would bring him to, Hook's ire was directed, instead, at the creature in the castle.

"Damn you, Witch," he gasped, still struggling to catch his breath from his time with Milah. "No revenge is worth this. I'll kill the bloody Crocodile myself, just let me go!"

"The pirate gives up and runs away from hard work," a voice came from behind him, making Hook nearly lose his footing in shock, "color me surprised."

Careful not to take a step, Hook pivoted on the spot to face a man in doublet, trousers, and cape with blonde hair and an expression that seemed to waver between amusement and distaste.

"Can I help you, _mate_?" Hook asked, imbuing that last word with all of his annoyance and sarcasm.

"I'm not your _mate_."

Hook couldn't help but be impressed, even in the face of such open dislike. Still, it wasn't as though he'd done the bloke any harm…

"Charming. What've I done to offend you then?"

The man stepped toward him, aggressive, cape swirling. For the first time, Hook noticed that the man was wearing a sword at his waist.

"I've been here for fifty years, waiting, and now our fate is in the hands- _hand-_ of a pirate? And not just any pirate, but a pirate who'd turn tail and run after barely starting? This is Killian Jones, scourge of the high seas?"

"Your fate? Your _fate_? Who says I give a rat's arse about your fate? I'm here for myself- you can't force me to be your bloody hero."

The man barked a laugh. "You think that, if I had any control over it, I'd have chosen you in a hundred years? Hardly."

Hook glared. "Then what are you talking about?"

The man shrugged. "I don't really know. I can't see all of it, but I know it depends on you."

"How?"

"You're here, running the Labyrinth. No one has ever been here before except Her, up at the castle. If you're here, it means things are changing."

"I didn't sign up to save the world."

"It doesn't matter. Sometimes you have to do the right thing- and in this case, that means going forward. Doing what's next. So… are you going to do it, or are you a coward?"

For a long moment, the two men stared at each other in open dislike. Then Hook spun on his heel and took a step forward.

~?~?~?~?~

Emma stared, open-mouthed. Unlike Granny Lucas before, she couldn't give this man a name, but she knew him. Knew his face like she knew her own, but she couldn't place him in time or space.

And he was saying what Henry had been saying- that this man- this mortal- this pirate- was the key to it all.

~?~?~?~?~

His lungs burned as he ran through the dark, the child's weight heavy across his back.

Not 'the child' he told himself. His brother. Liam.

_Half_-brother, another, darker voice inside him insisted. Nothing to do with you.

And yet he continued to run, trusting the potion to keep the child asleep until he reached the monastery. They were known for taking in children, and he could not allow his brother to starve.

~?~?~?~?~

A man fell to his sword as his wife watched. She shielded the eyes of their children, pushing her daughter behind her and allowing her son to bury his face in her skirts.

"That, madam," he said, cleaning blood off the blade by wiping it on the man's shirt before re-sheathing his weapon, "is what happens to men who try to cheat Captain Hook."

~?~?~?~?~

The dice rolled before him, a five and a four, as they were weighed to do, and a cheer went up from the men surrounding him.

~?~?~?~?~

A boy who was older than he looked gave Killian a strange smile as Liam lay unmoving in the dirt, offering life but knowing it was death.

~?~?~?~?~

His father's blood washed over his hand as he plunged the knife into his heart.

~?~?~?~?~

A tavern wench- nameless and almost faceless through the haze of rum- cried out falsely as he plunged into her. He knew she was lying- she felt no pleasure- but he did not care. She would earn her gold this night.

~?~?~?~?~

He stood with Liam clutching his small hand as his brother laid flowers on his mother's grave on one of their few visits to port.

~?~?~?~?~

Milah's brown hair flew about her joyful face as she danced to fiddle music played in a dance hall a thousand miles from the town she'd been born.

~?~?~?~?~

His father's kiss pressed into his forehead before he sold him into slavery.

~?~?~?~?~

Liam's face glowed with pride as Killian accepted his rank as Lieutenant in the king's navy.

~?~?~?~?~

Liam's body wrapped in sailcloth and fed to the hungry ocean.

~?~?~?~?~

A girl with a voice like magic, betrayed for his revenge.

~?~?~?~?~

Ten lashes across his back.

~?~?~?~?~

One hundred lashes across the back of another man, delivered until Hook's arm ached.

~?~?~?~?~

Swords flashed as he defended his ship and his men against all comers.

~?~?~?~?~

Milah stared up at him with smoky grey eyes, swearing her love to him as the light behind them faded.

~?~?~?~?~

He wrenched the ring off a dead man's hand for a trophy.

~?~?~?~?~

He dropped a gold coin into a beggar's cup, just for the pleasure of it.

~?~?~?~?~

Shark's blood spilled across the deck of the Jolly Roger as his men whooped at their catch.

~?~?~?~?~

The world went nearly black at the pain of his hand being cut off by the Dark One's wicked blade.

~?~?~?~?~

The swooping in his stomach of flying under the power of the Pegasus sail.

~?~?~?~?~

The dawn over the open ocean, turning it to liquid gold.

~?~?~?~?~

The burned-feather smell of a pegasus sail burning.

~?~?~?~?~

The feel of gold running through the fingers of his right hand.

~?~?~?~?~

The smell of the spice markets of the East, and Milah's wide eyes as she took it all in.

~?~?~?~?~

The Jolly Roger came alive beneath his boots as it plunged into the portal created by the magic bean and the hatred in his heart.

~?~?~?~?~

The burn of his muscles as he tried desperately to haul the rigging into place against the pull of the storm.

~?~?~?~?~

Stars as they can only be seen at sea- wide and endless and diamond-bright in the blackness of the eternal night.

~?~?~?~?~

Hook's knees hit the stone path of the Labyrinth as he gasped, grateful for even this tiny respite between steps and swirling memories.

There had been so much death, so much pain, so much evil.

So much joy, so much beauty, so much good.

When finally he had caught his breath he looked up to find that the Labyrinth had changed suddenly. He sat not in the featureless corridor in which he had traveled for gods-knew how long. Instead he was in a small garden with trees and a pond with three swans floating sleepily away in it, an oasis of serenity and quiet.

Hook pushed himself up from the ground warily and took a step toward this vision. When he didn't fall immediately into a memory, nor did the pond vanish from in front of his eyes, he took the next step more quickly.

Four long, booted strides brought him to the edge of the pond, his approach disturbing the swans who abandoned the water and settled on the opposite bank, watching him placidly. Hook knew swans to be capricious, violent creatures, but these acted docile as lambs and he ignored them, scooping water into his cupped hand instead and bringing it within an inch of his lips before his mind reasserted itself.

How could he have forgotten that he was in Faerie? No food nor drink could pass his lips- the smell of the apples hanging sweet and ripe in the tree spreading its branches above him had not escaped his notice- else he'd stay in the Ancient Realm forever.

Hook allowed the water to trickle through his fingers, back into the pool, then clenched his hand into a fist. He was suddenly exhausted and heartsick. How much more could a man be asked to endure? He wanted to sleep, but some muddled story in the back of his mind seemed to indicate that it was dangerous for a mortal to sleep in the land of the Fae.

"You can drink if you like," a voice from across the pond said.

For all the voice was soft and neutral, Hook's head jerked up as though the sound had been a shout.

Where once there had been three swans there remained only two which seemed to be completely ignoring the fact that their compatriot had transformed into the Lady of the castle beyond the Goblin City.

She was no longer wearing black, but a white gown as pure as the feathers of bird she had been pretending to be but moments before.

Hook pushed himself to his feet, brandishing his hook again. He wished he had iron or ash or silver or fire or any of a dozen mythical substances said to have strength against the Fair Folk. Instead all he had was steel, which was said to be a creation of the Faeries themselves for it diluted the iron so far that they could not be harmed by it.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as she seemed to glide around the pond toward him. Her skirts brushed the ground but picked up no dirt to mar their pristine whiteness. "What is this place?"

She stopped several feet in front of him, not pressing her advantage into his space. She seemed to consider him for a moment, small, round face cocked to the side and green eyes intense.

"Fifty years ago, I arrived in the Underground. The Labyrinth had stood static since Sarah had run it- some twenty years- but the moment I arrived it began to change. To shape itself in my image." She gave a small, slightly bitter smile. "It nearly killed Jareth's final runner, who was still inside. He was a child with only a few memories and he was nearly sucked dry." She shook her head. "It's an extension of me and, like me, it has no taste for death. I found the runner here- it's a place where no memory can touch you. It's safe. Completely."

Hook snorted. "Safe? It may do me no harm, but I've no interest in remaining in Faerie forever."

The Lady shook her head. "My food will not trap you here or hurt you in any way. Eat or drink anything you like, and you will return to your realm just as you intend. You will be safe. You will be whole. And-" she held up a hand, stopping Hook as he opened his mouth to retort, "you will arrive within half a day of having left, no more." She smiled when he closed his mouth with a click, pleased at having anticipated him. "I know the stories too," she said, and her voice was very nearly warm.

Hook sighed and lowered himself to the ground again, exhausted by it all. He'd seen too much that day and, were he being honest with himself, if the Lady intended to keep him in Faerie, he could hardly have summoned the reserves to object.

"Are you well?" the Lady asked, sounding concerned.

Hook cracked an eye and looked at her wearily. With her eyebrows drawn together, and her mouth pursed, she looked less ethereal and more human, and consequently more beautiful than she looked when she was strange and Fae. He could imagine a man willingly giving his soul to be her consort.

"I am tired, Lady," he said shortly. "It may be difficult for an immortal such as yourself to understand, but I have seen and done much this day that is-"

"I know," she said, quietly, and lowered herself to the ground, keeping her distance from him still. "I know what you have seen, and I am sorry."

Hook said nothing to this, and she seemed to expect nothing. The two sat in silence for a moment, watching the two swans on the other side of the pond nuzzling one-another.

He thought it strange that she would stay after assuring him of his safety, but he found that he was glad to have her presence. He was sure that she, at least, was not a memory.

And she, oddly, seemed as willing to tolerate his company.

After a long moment, she spoke, sounding awkward. "Your lady… she is… she was... very beautiful. Very lovely."

"Aye… that she was."

"And… your brother. He was a good man."

Hook's voice was thick as he answered. "Aye, the very best."

"And so are you, Captain Hook."

Hook's eyes had been dropping closed, exhaustion taking over him, even in his internal turmoil. At this, he blinked awake.

"I am what?" he asked.

He could hear the smile in her voice, though her face was turned away from him when she spoke. "A good man."

He snorted. "You know little of mortals, Lady. I am a pirate, not a good man."

"I am a Fae, and not human," she said softly. "I know enough of mortals. I know that a pirate is only a man who bows to no king and acknowledges no law save that of the wind and wave. But you are in Faerie now, and mortal laws do not bind. Here, the only laws are those that transcend the realms- truth, loyalty, courage. I know that few mortals are honest, but you are. I know that few mortals are true, but you are. I know that few mortals are brave, but you are, and that makes you good."

"And you, Lady? Are you brave, honest, and true?"

"I do not know," she murmured. "Perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not, it is not mine to say."

"An answer worthy of the trickster gods," Hook sneered. "At least if you are not good, you are powerful, isn't that right?"

She turned toward him then, her eyes glowing oddly green in her lovely face.

"There are forces that drive all realms, Captain. There is memory and innocence and belief. There is will, wisdom, and wit. There is birth, life, and death. There is dream, desire, destiny, and destruction. There are the four winds, the four seasons. There is the dawn, the day, the dusk, and the dark.

"You are mortal and so you change and grow, as do the seasons and the light. You learn. You remember. You change. You die. I remain always the same because that is what creatures like me are and do. My magic can only borrow these powers, Captain. You generate them with every breath and every dream.

"But there is one power that transcends all of these. In every realm, no matter whether it believes or not, _love _is the greatest, most powerful force."

"You love, Captain Hook. You love deeply and without ceasing. Your brother. Your lady. Your men, your ship, your freedom. You love them with the strength and depth of the sea itself, which you love as well. That makes you powerful."

"And do you love, my Lady?" Hook felt as though the breath had been sucked from his lungs by her strange, lovely eyes and when he spoke, it was a whisper that could scarce be heard, even by his own ears. He could see, however, that the question had reached her.

The Lady stood in a sudden swirl of silken skirts, strange and Fae once again.

"You may stay in this place as long as you will, Captain," she said, her voice sharp and distant. "Eat, drink, and rest. No harm will come to you."

She turned on her heel and took three steps away from him, and Hook was sure she would vanish in a puff of smoke as she had before, but she seemed to hesitate for a moment before she turned to look at him again.

"Captain… I should warn you. You will know that this place is mine by the apples that grow. If you should find a place where the trees bear peaches, it is not safe and you should allow no food to pass your lips, nor should you sleep there. It… I… I would not see you harmed."

He wished he could see her face, but she kept her back to him.

"Thank you, my Lady… Swan," he said before she could vanish.

She stopped again, brought up short as he named her. She did not turn, but she spoke very softly, as though hoping he might not hear.

"I am sorry your brother and lady are dead, Captain Hook. I am sorry you are alone. I would not wish it on anyone."

She vanished then in silver smoke.

~?~?~?~?~

The room fairly sparkled with silver gilt and lavish gems. This lady's gown seemed dipped in platinum. That lady appeared to have diamonds sewn over every inch of hers. The king and queen stood upon a dais dressed in complementary ebony and gold, faces masked- he and eagle and she a falcon.

Each person, he now saw, was masked. Here a panther, there a wolf. Crocodile and dragon. Lions and tigers and bears. Each one a predator.

He brought a hand to his own face to find no mask there. A giggle issued from below him and he looked to see that he was dancing with a maid in ruby red with hair like a waterfall of midnight silk and a lupine smile behind a fox's mask.

"Milah," he whispered.

"You sound surprised, my love," she murmured. "If you don't pay attention, you'll lose the measure entirely, and the king would be most displeased."

So he danced with her, smooth and graceful, and he drank in her face and form as though he had not seen her in centuries. As though he would not see her again.

She danced better than she had ever danced with him before- her feet sure, leading him nearly as much as he led her.

He looked up as a man in a snake's mask, doublet glittering with emeralds brushed past them, and when he looked down, he held in his arms a different woman.

This one was dressed in white feathers but, like he, had no mask. Her eyes were green, her lips were red, and her hair was the colour of a pirate's gold.

"I do not know the steps," she said, eyes wide as they looked into his. "You must lead. Please- before my father sees."

He looked up to find the eagle-headed king's eyes on them.

"As you wish, my Lady Swan," he murmured and swept the princess away into the dance.

On they danced- the lady in white and the pirate in black, swirling together more and more quickly until they seemed to bleed into one another, becoming instead a silvery grey.

Finally, the music came to an end and they stopped, becoming again separate people. Her eyes had never left his through the entire dance, nor had his been able to leave hers.

In the silence at the end of the music, he bowed his head and pressed his mouth to hers- not because it was a part of the dance, but because if he did not, he thought he might die.

She tasted of apples.

~?~?~?~?~

Henry entered the Lady's magic room to find her crumpled on the floor in a gown of white, weeping as though her heart was broken. He crossed to her and knelt at her side, wrapping his thin arms around her shoulders as though to keep her from falling apart.

"I thought faeries didn't cry," he whispered, rocking her as though she were a child.

"They don't," she said, and because she said it, it was true, and yet still the tears poured down her face like rain.

~?~?~?~?~

Hook woke to the trumpet of the swans with the taste of apples still on his lips.

~?~?~?~?~

Captain Hook felt that he must be nearly a thousand years old as he stumbled to a stop before the great stone gates of what had once been the Goblin City.

He had lived again nearly three-hundred years, outlived again every person he'd ever loved, hurt again, fought again, nearly died time and again and yet every time still he survived.

His enemies had again gloated over his sure defeat, and yet he always walked away in the end. Even with the Dark One's sinister giggle still echoing in his ears, Hook was aware not of his encompassing desire for vengeance, but of the odd curse or charm that existed over his life that kept him always continuing on- pushing forward even when it would have been so much easier to lay down and succumb.

Unlike the rest of the Labyrinth, the gates to the Goblin City were exactly as Sarah Williams had described in her book, unchanged by the new master of the castle beyond. Hook might have wondered at this fact, save that he had no reserves left on which to draw. He could not imagine what else he would be forced to relive, but he could only go toward it with incurious steadfastness.

He reached out his hand to the handle of the door.

"You don't have to do that, you know."

Hook sighed. He should have expected it- one more guardian of the Labyrinth. One more memory that didn't know itself. One more guide.

He turned wearily to look and found there a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman watching him out of a surprisingly still face. She looked human- the skin around her eyes showed the strain of sleeplessness, and tracks were cut around her mouth, but there was something about her eyes that was strange and other-worldly.

He thought it must be the very fact of being in Arcadia for so long that was making him see pixies where there were nothing but memories.

"And why not?" he asked sharply, having long since grown weary of this game. "Is there another tormented moment of my long life I must relive before I am offered my boon? Have I missed something?"

"Not at all, Captain Hook," she said, and odd smile teasing the corner of her mouth. "You have made good on your half of the deal, in fact. You have run the Labyrinth, and now you need go no farther. Call the Lady here and ask your boon of her. Call her and end this farce."

Hook frowned. "I must make my way to the castle," he said slowly. "When Sarah Williams-"

"Sarah Williams was charged with finding and saving her brother, kept in the castle. You were only charged with finishing the maze. There is a difference. Words mean a great deal in this land, Captain, and you would do well to listen more carefully in future."

"I thought the Labyrinth went to the foot of the castle."

The woman gave a small laugh that sounded like the crack of a whip. She gestured to the gates. "They have not changed. The palace, the city, all of them are the same, just as Sarah saw them, and just as you expected them. Only the Labyrinth changes itself to mirror the soul in the palace, not the entire Underground. You have finished your task, Pirate. Stay here and call the Lady to your side. She will come."

Something niggled at Hook's exhausted brain. Some odd insight or strange sense. He could not seem to grasp it, however.

"What dangers do I run walking to the foot of the castle? The Goblins are gone and the city is empty, is that not correct?"

The woman's mouth twisted in displeasure. "Yes, it is correct. It is no danger to you to cross the city, but why give to the Lady of the palace so much consideration? Call her to your side. Take your leave of this place."

"What lies on the other side of these gates, Wench?" Hook cried, taking a step toward the woman. "Why do you keep me from it?"

He was a few inches taller than her and looked down his nose at her. For all he was larger and stronger than she, the woman did not move or flinch.

"Call her," she said, quietly. "Bring her to face me, Mortal."

It came together in an instant- the vague smell of peaches, the way the woman did not say his name as the other memories had- she was not a lost being of the Labyrinth, but a creature of Arcadia, and bound by the laws therein.

She could tell him no lies.

"Who are you, Faerie?"

"It should have been me," she said, her pretty face twisting into something ugly. "It should have been mine!"

Suddenly she twisted, growing huge and ugly and scaled in a moment. The world tilted on its axis and before him loomed a great grey-green dragon.

It shrieked and lunged, and Hook could see a great billow of fire at the back of its mouth and he knew he was dead. He knew and could do nothing- after seeing his thousands of escapes from death only moments before, he knew that this time there was no stopping what came. He lifted a hand before him, and, knowing it was no protection, closed his eyes and waited.

He could still hear the dragon's roar, but could feel nothing- no burning, no flame, no death. He opened his eyes to find the Lady of the castle standing before him, a blazing angel in her white gown, hands held before her, gathering the dragon's fire in a ball between them.

The roar stopped and all was still for a moment, save the dancing ball of fire in the Lady's hands.

"You would come to my sovereign court and threaten that which is under my protection?" the Lady shouted, her voice full of all of the power of her kind. "You would so egregiously break the laws of our people? You would dishonour me so?"

"You have no court, Swan," the dragon rasped. "No subjects. No honour. No name. The orphan of Arcadia, alone even now after all these years."

"Alone, perhaps, but what you have done this day would be seen by all of the kingdoms as an act of war. Would I be alone then, _Lily_?"

The dragon screamed at the name, as though in pain. "That name was given without fair exchange. It does not belong on your lips."

"It was given in good faith, and with pure heart and is, therefore, mine to wield as I like. Go, sister, before I am forced to use it again. Do not come back here. Do not threaten what is mine."

The fireball blazed white-hot and bright as a star, then seemed to explode into a shower of tiny glittering shards.

"You are weak. You were always weak. I was the strong one- it should be me in that castle. It should be me that the songs and stories are sung about. I who holds your power."

"Leave this place. Do not enter the Underground again or I shall destroy you." The Lady spoke with such certainty that all the land seemed to still in that moment as she spoke, and shudder when she stopped.

The dragon roared, but against the power of that pronouncement, it seemed a tiny thing, that cry. Like a yapping dog to a lion.

It spread its great black wings and, with a huge rush of air, lifted itself from the ground and into the sky.

The Lady stood, her back to Hook, and she watched the sky where the great dragon vanished into the silver-grey cloud cover.

Once the dragon was gone, the Lady's spine lost some of its starch and she turned to face Hook, her face strange and expressionless and other.

"Friend of yours?" Hook asked, one eyebrow raised.

The Lady's mask broke, and an oddly sad expression took over. "She used to be, once. More than a friend- she was my sister."

"I suppose my brother and I might have thrown fire at one another on occasion, if we'd had the power."

The Lady gave him a small smile. "Perhaps."

"Was it true what she said? Have I fulfilled my part of the bargain? Have I made it through the Labyrinth and can I receive my boon?"

The Lady's smile widened slightly. "She is a creature of Fae, Captain. She cannot tell a lie any more than I can. I can grant your boon here, but I would ask your indulgence to accompany me to the Castle. My books and magical implements are there, and it would be simpler. Location does have some effect upon magic. It is your choice, however."

"I can hardly refuse such a small request from my Lady when it is so graciously offered," he said extending his hand to hers with a bow and a grin.

She placed her hand in his. "You are very charming, Captain. For a human."

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. "And you are surprisingly good company, my Lady. For a faerie. Come, let us to your castle and your books."

Together they took a step through the gates into the Goblin City.

~?~?~?~?~

The room was dark and cold, stark and comfortless as only a prison to house an immortal creature can be.

"Where are we?" Hook asked, looking this way and that, eyes scarcely able to penetrate the gloom. "What is this place? Is this some kind of trick? Speak, Witch!"

"I do not know," the Lady said, and her voice was, for the first time since he had met her, a small, scared thing, shaking like a child's. Like a human's. "I do not know why we are here, but I know this place. We must leave. We must go now!"

She reached for him across the dark, but before Hook could take her hand, a small port in what must have been the door opened and a single shaft of light fell on a figure on the floor.

It was light-haired, dressed in rags, and filthy.

It was, unmistakably, the Lady.

The Lady on the floor lifted her head, hair not kept carefully restrained, but stringing across her face in locks like yarn.

"Please," she said, and her voice had none of the power or Faerie strangeness that it held now. "Please. I am cold and I am hungry. Please let me go. I will do anything."

"Say these words," a gruff voice ordered from the other side of the door. "Say the words 'I am not hungry.' Say them now."

The Lady pushed herself to her knees slowly, trembling. "I-I am…" she started, then seemed to choke as she began to speak the next word. "I am-" she gasped and retched as she attempted. "Please…" she begged. "I cannot. I am so afraid. Please may I have some light."

"Say the words 'I am not afraid.' Say them now."

"I am-" and again she doubled over, choking on the next word. "I cannot say it. I cannot speak the words. Please."

"Do you know your name?"

"No! I do not know anything. I don't know where I am. I don't know who you are. Please… I… Please."

"You will not weep," the voice said and the girl's low sobs stopped in an instant for he spoke only the truth. "You will never again hunger. You will never again feel cold. You will never again need to sleep. You will see in the dark as well as in the light. Do you understand?"

The girl's voice was strange and distant when she answered, but there was no more shudder of cold in it, no more hint of tears. "Will I fear?"

"Yes. Fear and pain you will know, little Swan. Fear and pain you will know all your life."

~?~?~?~?~

In the castle lived two girls- one with hair like sunlight, and one with hair like midnight. One had eyes green as a faerie glen, and one with eyes as dark and deep as the sea. They were inseparable- best friends and sisters.

The blonde girl did not know any magic, and the brown-haired girl knew a great deal. She taught her friend all she knew.

"The air will guide you, as will the sun. Just hold yourself still and listen to them," she said drawing her hands through the air and bringing the wind with it to make a sound like a harp string plucked.

The blonde girl tried what she had done, and they found themselves in a mighty gale which tossed their skirts and hair about.

The blonde girl looked mortified, but the dark girl only laughed and laughed.

Once they had straightened themselves out, the dark head leaned toward the bright, and she spoke in a low, conspiratorial whisper.

"Mother says I'm not to tell anyone my real name, but you and I are friends, are we not?"

"We are more than friends, we are sisters," the bright girl said softly. It was nothing but the truth.

"My name is Lily. What is yours?"

"I have no name, Lily. I have no past."

The dark head nodded. "That is all right. You and I shall be sisters forever, and you will not need a name. Do not use mine where anyone else can hear, else someone who shouldn't might learn it. It is a powerful thing, a name."

"Your name is safe in my hands, sister."

~?~?~?~?~

Lily's face was bright red with blood.

"You have stolen everything from me! All that was to be mine is yours now! I thought you loved me!"

The Lady stood bewildered at the onslaught.

"But I do love you, Lily," she said, quietly.

"Do not use that name," the dark-haired girl shrieked. She took a step toward the woman who had been her sister, her hands reaching like claws toward her. "That name is not for your lips. I will reach into your mind and pluck it out, then draw out your heart and crush it to dust!"

The Lady put her hands forward as her sister made a grab at her and threw the girl against the wall with a force that would have crushed every bone in a mortal's body. Lily gasped, the breath having been knocked out of her lungs, but was otherwise unhurt.

The Lady vanished in a puff of silver smoke.

~?~?~?~?~

"Where are we?" Hook asked the Lady at his side. He could not see another version of her in the crowd of people who walked around and through them, but knew she must be there.

"The Summer Court," she said, quietly and without colour. "The night of fertility."

The dancing around them picked up pace and became a frenzy and as Hook watched, he could feel the energy turning from high-spirit and dancing to something darker and wilder and infinitely more dangerous. Had he been there in truth, a fragile human, he would have been destroyed. Torn apart by forces so far beyond him that he could never understand.

He saw her then and wondered why he had not before. Where everyone around them wore the colours of summer- blue and green and gold and red- she wore a simple gown the colour of starlight. He saw in her the restraint and distance that he had noticed in her from the moment he had arrived in the Ancient Realm, but at this time it was only beginning.

A Fae man came to her and offered her a glass full of a liquid that Hook did not recognize.

"It is faerie wine, ambrosia," the Lady said softly, though no one could hear them. "I have no love of it, however. I have forgotten too many things in my life already."

Hook watched her wave the glass away. The man then offered a hand to the dancing, which she also waved away. The man seemed unwilling to accept this, however, and took her hand forcibly, dragging the Lady bodily to the dancing, even as she struggled.

The dance floor was becoming raunchier around them, and the man immediately pressed the Lady to himself as the men around them were doing. Still she struggled, and still he held her.

Hook took a step in the man's direction, the edges of his vision going bloody as he could see where it all would lead, but the Lady's hand on his arm stopped him.

"What is done is done, and nothing to be done about it, Mortal," she said, and her voice was distant and strange. Her face a foreign mask, and her eyes looking past the scene in the court of Summer.

Hook could not watch and turned away taking the Lady's arm and turning her as well.

"Nothing to be done, perhaps," he said softly, "but no need to watch again if you can help it."

"You could not," she said.

"No."

"I am sorry, Captain."

~?~?~?~?~

"The Court of Twilight," the Lady said before he asked. "The sunset sacrifice."

Sacrifice it was, and as the red light of the dying sun fell across the hall, it was the same colour as the blood the spread across the floor.

Two young women, dressed in white lay limp on the ground already, their eyes open but sightless. Their hearts pumping the hot, salty blood over the toes of those witnesses standing closest. Three more maidens stood waiting their turn.

The next was led to to altar where a man cloaked in starlight stood with a knife that glistened already as though studded with rubies in his hand.

"They do this every night?" Hook asked, appalled. The women were obviously human- mortal and afraid.

"No," she whispered beside him, and he followed her eyes to find her standing, the hem of her white gown stained red so far up that the fading pink reached nearly to her slim waist, her hair pulled away from her pale, cold face, her eyes haunted. "This happens only once a year, thank all the gods of men."

The girl kneeling on the altar stone seemed to find something in the Lady's face that spoke of sympathy.

"Please!" she cried, reaching out a hand to the white-gowned faerie. "Please have mercy."

The man with the knife had none.

~?~?~?~?~

The Court of Night was all secrets and whispers and intrigue.

The Court of Spring was dancing and faerie wine and the pleasures of the body.

The Court of the North was war-like and proud.

In the Court of the Sky she nearly made her home. They avoided the intrigues and posturing of the other courts and merely wished to live and let live among themselves. They had no desire for war, no hatred of the other creatures of the Ancient Lands, and no interest in the slightest in the mortal realms. She'd have stayed for all of her immortal days, but the day she took a knee to offer her fealty to the the ruler of the Sky, she was asked to offer a gift- her name- to the Queen as a show of good faith.

When she was found to have no name, she was banished from the Sky and told never to return.

It was in this way that she had found her way to the Underground, after thirty human years. It was in this way that the abandoned castle became her home.

~?~?~?~?~

Hook recognized the apple tree and the pond and the three swans, but not the young boy who slept beneath the tree.

The Lady transformed from bird to her usual form and moved toward the small shape. The Lady who stood beside Hook seemed to tremble as she watched.

The boy woke and he sat up, brown eyes focussed on the Lady in white without fear or confusion.

"Who are you?" the Lady asked, when the boy said nothing.

"I'm Henry," he answered right away. "Henry Mills. Who are you?"

"You should be careful with your name, Henry Mills. It is a precious thing. I am the Lady of this place."

"Oh," he said, looking around, eyes wide with interest. "Like the queen?"

She gave him a small smile. "No, I'm afraid not. A queen must have subjects, and I think you'll find there are very few of those here."

Henry nodded, seeming to understand. "You could be the queen of the swans though, I suppose."

"I could. Perhaps I already am. How did you come to be here, Henry?"

He looked away from her for the first time. Looked down at his small, dirty hands. "I wished," he said quietly. "I wished to go to the land of fairy tales. Of princesses and true love and prince charming and-"

The Lady halted him with a small laugh. "Yes, I know of such stories. You have come somewhere else, I'm afraid, though it was what you wished. This is the land of faerie tales- tales of the Old Ones- the ancient forces of nature and power. You are in the realm of the Fae."

The boy looked at her, eyes wide but uncomprehending. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"No?" the Lady asked. "Well I think I have never heard of someone who has never heard of such a thing, what do you think of that?"

The boy opened his mouth to speak, but they were interrupted by a loud growling noise. The Lady placed herself in front of the child with her hands out, ready to wield all her power in protecting him.

"I'm sorry," Henry said. "I'm starving!"

The Lady turned to look at him. "You are? We must go to the castle then and get you food."

"You live in a castle?" the boy asked, his face suddenly glowing with excitement. "This _is _a fairy tale!"

~?~?~?~?~

From that point on, no memory failed to include Henry. Hook witnessed Henry's discovery of the Lady's amnesia and his plan to cure her of it. He watched them scour books and histories, trying to find a spell or charm or power that could return her lost self.

He witnessed them finding the spell and its ingredient of two-hundred years of human memories.

"You called to me," he said softly.

"Yes," she said, softly, sounding contrite. "You had a wish that we- that _I_\- could grant, and we merely… suggested that you could seek its solution among the Fae. Had you wished, you could have found yourself in any court, but Henry believed that you would come to us. He… he has the greatest power of belief of any creature that I have ever known."

"How long have you had him?"

"In human terms, twenty years. He does not know how long it has been. I should have sent him back to his world but…"

"You were lonely, and he was lonely, and together you weren't so lonely," Hook said. He had seen them come together and could not fault her love for the boy. "He would not have been happy in his own world, but he has been happy here. You love him."

"More than I thought was possible for one of the Ancient Ones."

Hook turned to look at her as she watched the boy to see that her eyes were luminous- not with faerie light, as they sometimes were, but with a gentler, sweeter glow. Like moonlight. Like love.

She looked away from the lad in the memory as she and he waited in the castle's Kitchen for the mortal Captain to join them and looked at him.

She smiled.

~?~?~?~?~

Finally they found themselves on the steps of the castle, alone and in the present Underground again.

"Did you know that would happen?" Hook asked, keeping the accusation in his voice to a minimum.

"I did not. I am sorry, Captain. I would not have anyone relive my life, but perhaps it is equity- I saw your life, so you have seen mine. What I know of it, anyway."

"I am sorry for you, my Lady. You have had no easier a life than I."

The Lady smiled. "Come, Captain Hook. I owe you a boon, do I not?"

He shook his head. "Aye, my Lady, but my revenge has waited centuries and can wait a few minutes more. I should very much like to see this spell of yours, if I may? I should like to see how I helped."

The Lady opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a shout from the entrance to the castle.

"Lady Swan! I think it's ready!"

The pair at the bottom of the steps looked up to see the young lad who had become the Lady's ward practically bouncing on his toes in his excitement.

The Lady took the Captain's hand without thought and pulled him up the steps to the castle until they stood beside Henry.

"What has happened?" she asked, even as she followed the lad into the building.

The water in the bowl has gone all silver and cloudy, and the stuff in the thing in the corner is sort of a sparkly blue-pink. Is that right?"

"I do not know, my dear. I have never done a spell like this before, and I do not know anyone who has. Come, I must see."

She took off through the castle at a speed that had the two humans running to keep up with her, and still falling behind.

"You're Captain Hook, aren't you?" Henry gasped as they followed her through the winding halls.

"Aye, I am."

"I've read about you, you know. There are stories in my realm. You're a villain in them, but I think they're wrong."

"Do you? I don't think they are, Lad. I'm a pirate, and to most that's the same as being a villain."

Henry shook his head. "Not in this story. She's the cursed princess, and you're the hero here to save her. I'm sure of it. You'll see- she'll get her memories back and you'll both see that I'm right."

Hook wanted to tell the lad that life wasn't like the fairy tales, but as he followed a Lady of the Fae through a castle with proportions that could not possibly have existed, with a child who had been ten for twenty years, he himself a man of near-three-hundred and the victim of the perfidy of the likes of Rumplestiltskin and Peter Pan, he found- in spite of the fact that he, if no one else, could lie in this place- he could not say it.

The Lady reached a door and threw it open, vanishing behind it and leaving the men to follow in her wake.

Hook gasped at the room as he entered it. Not only much larger than his senses told him it should be, but it was the first place in the Lady's realm that had true colour in it. The walls were lined with shelves from which glinted jewel-bright bottles and leather-bound books, but it was the very light that had colour. The lad had said that something was sparkling blue, and he was both right and wrong: it seemed to transition from the deepest indigo through to the colour of the sky, and then to purple all the way nearly to pink in a shifting, swirling light show worth of the aurora borealis itself.

The Lady seemed to float across the room as she approached the glowing apparatus and extracted a bottle of the strange and beautiful substance. She carried it to the centre of the room where, for the first time, he saw a large, shallow silver bowl, full to the brim of something that looked like cloud. Hook took a step toward it and looked inside and saw in the shifting mass familiar shapes: there was Liam, and there was the Crocodile, and there the Jolly Roger.

"My memories," he whispered, his breath blowing across the surface and billowing the substance like wind.

"Yes," she whispered. "Thank you for them. Step away now, I don't know what will happen."

He took a step back and laid a hand on Henry's shoulder, drawing the lad into the protection of his body as the Lady, her face lit by the weird light of the magic before her, began to whisper and pour the contents of her bottle into the bowl of his memories.

For a moment, the light continued to move, silver and pink and blue and purple together, and there was an aura of power and a sound of music just beyond the hearing of a mortal that seemed to press in on them from the very stones of the castle.

Then, in an instant, the bowl went dark and there was nothing. The room became suddenly grey, the bookshelves retreated into the gloom, and there was nothing but the three standing there more than half in shadow.

"What happened?" Henry asked into the twilit stillness. "Did it work? Lady Swan, do you remember?"

"No," she said, and her voice was as grey and dark as the room around them. "I have failed."

Something in her tone had both men moving forward toward her so that, when she collapsed, Hook was there to catch her in his arms.

Henry took her hand as the Captain lowered her gently to the ground.

"We'll try again, my Lady," the boy said softly. "We'll find another way."

Her eyes were closed, and her face was in shadow, but she shook her head where it rested just above Hook's heart.

"No, Dear Heart. What's done is done, and I have failed you. I am sorry. To you both."

She opened her eyes and looked at Hook, and for the first time since the darkness had descended over the room, there was a tiny spot of colour. Her eyes were green as a faerie glade, as the water in a warm salt lagoon, as the flash of light on the horizon at sunset or sunrise that sailors swear is a vision of heaven.

He could not have said what compelled him in that moment. Had he thought about his actions for even a second, he would not have done it, but he did not and so he lowered his head to hers and found her mouth with his.

She tasted just as she had in his dream- of apples and honey. He had wondered, when first he saw her, whether she would feel cold to the touch but he found, as he lifted his hand to her round cheek, that she was warm, like dragon fire or the lightning that strikes the water to a flash boil, blinding the sailor to its light.

And it was blinding, that moment. The surge of power made the hairs on the back of his neck and his arm rise up on end with electricity and made it impossible for him to draw his lips away from hers.

Or maybe he just didn't want to.

The Lady pulled away from him with a gasp, and when Hook's eyes managed to drift open, he found that they were no longer in the shadowy grey room in the castle of the Underground, but in a large, tapestried room decorated lavishly for a child and lit by a roaring fire.

"What?" Henry cried in surprise.

"My Lady-" Hook began.

"Hush!" she whispered, her eyes fixed on a point behind the Captain. "I remember."

He turned and found that there was a crib with a mobile that hung with sparkling crystal unicorns. A device worthy of a princess. Standing over the crib was no king or queen, however, but a figure that Hook knew only too well- a man with skin glittering with snake-like scales and eyes that glowed eerily golden in the light of the fire.

"Crocodile!" Hook hissed, and lunged toward him with murder in his heart, but the Lady grabbed at his hook.

"Still yourself. What's done is done, and nothing to do but witness now," she said, and he subsided beside her again.

In one arm, the Dark One held a squirming bundle of blankets and in a move as quick as lightning, he scooped the child asleep in the cradle into his arms and deposited his own burden into the bed in its place. Then he vanished in a puff of red smoke.

The Lady stood slowly, moving as though under water and crossed to the crib, Hook and Henry at her heels.

The creature in the cradle was ugly. Its fingers and toes were too long for a baby, and it had sharp teeth in it's open mouth and eyes that glowed green in the low light of the fire.

As they watched, however, its hands and feet shrank down and the teeth vanished into its gums, and the child became more normal-looking, though still ugly for a baby. The only evidence of its nature that remained were those unnaturally green eyes.

"A changeling," the Lady said, in despair. "A faerie child left in place of a human princess. Oh gods…"

She might have given in to despair then, collapsed into Hook's arms, which were ready for her, but into the room came, at that moment, another woman. This woman had a sweet, round face and a gentle smile, and eyes that were grey-green, like a stormy sea. She crossed to the cradle and looked into it, her smile widening at the sight of the child inside.

"Hello my darling," she said, drawing a finger down the creature's cheek, not even seeming to notice that it was not the lovely babe it had been before. "Hello my lovely Emma."

"Mother," the Lady whispered, her eyes wide and glued to the face of the woman. "Oh Mother… I remember…"

Another sound from the door tore her eyes away from the dark-haired lady to find a tall, broad-shouldered blonde man with an easy smile and eyes like fine steel.

"Papa," the Lady whispered.

"The man from the Labyrinth," Hook said.

"Come, Snow," he said, holding out a hand to the woman who had gathered the infant into her arms. "The time has come to introduce the kingdom to their princess."

The two left the room together, and it dissolved around Hook, Henry, and the Lady. The scene re-formed over and over and the child called Emma grew from an ugly baby who never cried into an awkward child who seemed always to have her hands in trouble or her feet moving too fast for the rest of her to keep up. She had scraped knees and dirty hands, but she never lied.

And her parents loved her desperately.

As she grew beneath the adoring eyes of the King and Queen, she grew more poised and more beautiful. Her eyes remained strange, but the rest of her became a lovely young woman with golden hair. She became friends with the castle cook, a woman who was known to everyone as "Granny Lucas" and Hook recognized from his foray into the land of memory.

Finally they stood in the princess's bedroom on the eve of her twentieth birthday and her coronation. Her mother the queen helped to arrange her hair, and her father the king placed a glittering tiara into it and said that the jewels paled in comparison to her beauty. Then the king and queen left the room to take up their thrones and welcome their daughter before all of their country.

The Lady sat, straight-backed and tense with nerves, but obviously excited as well. She checked her appearance in the mirror one last time and then turned to look at her bedroom.

She gasped to find a man standing behind her, skin like a lizard and eyes that seemed to touch her with clammy fingers.

"Princess Emma," the man said in a voice that sounded almost child-like in its glee. "They thought you would never survive, and yet here you are. Lovely and alive, just as I knew you would be."

The princess blinked in surprise. "Who are you, sir? How did you come to be here? How did you get past the guards?"

He grinned, showing crooked, blackened teeth. "No place is safe from me, and you know who I am. Your mummy dearest has warned you about me since you were a tiny thing. I am the Dark One and you will come with me."

The princess opened her mouth to scream, but the crocodile creature put up a hand and froze her in place.

"You will forget, little human princess. You will forget now, and when you remember, you will call to me. Remember that, child. You will call me to you when you remember and I will tell you all."

Everything went dark and the three were in the magic room of the castle of the Underground again.

Henry and Hook tried to speak at the same time.

"But that means-"

"How did you-"

"I thought it didn't-"

"What does that-"

"Quiet!" the Lady said, and both men silenced in an instant.

She lifted a hand and there was suddenly light in the room, illuminating all three faces.

"Come to me, Dark One!" she shouted into the air. "Come to me, Rumplestiltskin!"

Hook's stomach twisted at the name, but then he realized as the imp himself materialized in their midst that it was magic which had turned his gut.

"Now there's a name you don't hear everyday. How comes the Orphan of Arcadia to know it?"

The lady turned on her heel and lifted her hand, slamming the Dark One into the wall without touching him.

"You think the Ancient Ones do not know who controls their dagger? Every high Fae knows the name of the Dark One."

"_Your_ dagger?" Hook asked, a cold, sinking feeling in his chest.

"Oh yes, Dearie, didn't you know?" the Dark One giggled. "The power of the Dark One comes from the Ancient Realms. It's the Fae who made me."

"And the Fae who hold your leash, and yet you went behind the back of the Courts and returned a changeling to Faerie? Not only that, you erased my memories! The kingdoms will not stand for this."

"Foolish wee thing you are. Still not seeing the whole story, are you Dearie? I did not steal you back without the knowledge of the courts. I stole you back at their command!"

The Lady faltered, and the Dark One giggled.

"Magic always comes with a price," he sing-songed, then suddenly his face was serious. "I come and go at the whim of the Fae. No order issued me by a member of the entire Seelie Court can I fail to follow, nor can I tell an untruth."

"What-"

"A hundred years ago and more I was called before a secret meeting of the Kings and Queens and Lords and Ladies of every Court. All together they were, waiting for me. They ordered me prophesy, and I did.

"_There will come a princess of Men and she will walk among you and be one of you. _

_She will be loved of men but with the power of the Fae._

_In the sky in splendor or under the ground in solitude, the convergence of belief and blood. _

_She will be Queen only of the worthy, receiving perfect loyalty and perfect love._

_At her whim alone the kingdoms of mortal and Faerie may be built or destroyed._"

The voice in which the Dark One prophesied sent shivers up the spine, but he was not done.

"They cast nativities even then and found that the child of Snow White and Prince David, a child of True Love, was the source of this power, and so they stole the child away, thinking that if it was raised among the Ancient Ones, her whim would not be to destroy them."

The Dark One's face broke again into that mad grin of his.

"They know nothing. Lily was never the princess, you were. I stole her away before she had been presented to the kingdom and left you in her place. Lily may have been born of True Love, but _you _were raised by it, and you had the _power _of it in your wee Faerie heart.

"When they realized their mistake, they sent me back. You were made to forget all you knew of men and mortals, and yet you were never cold as they were. For all they tried, they could not make you hate, and that is why you could bind the realms or break them apart, brick-by-brick."

"My parents," the Lady whispered. "You ruined their lives."

"They had another child once you were gone. A fine, strapping lad, and a great king he turned out to be. Far better than you would have done."

"My sister's life-"

"She would always have been weaker than you-"

"But she would have been happy as their daughter! As I was!"

The Dark One giggled again. "Sweet Lily is ambitious. Gentle princess adored by Snow White and Prince Charming? She would have stifled. She would have gone mad. Kinder for her to be here, among the heartless."

"Why? Why lead the Fae astray? What did you want?"

The Dark One's smile widened, and his eyes shifted from the Lady's face to the Captain's. "Why… _revenge_, of course. You remember, do you not, Princess Emma? You remember Mummy and Daddy? All those years as a pampered palace pet? I think I would not be here otherwise."

"I remember. Why do I remember? My spell failed."

"There is one charm that breaks any curse. Only that one, but it is the most powerful charm in all the realms. True Love's Kiss."

"But-" the Lady said.

"True-" Hook began over her.

"Yes," the Dark One interrupted. His smile widened still further until it seemed his head would split in two. "Faithless Killian, who took what was not his for less than love." He made a soft tutting noise with his tongue as he shook his head. "For shame."

"But… True Love conquers all," Henry piped up, speaking for the first time. "So long as they have that, they have their happy ending and you don't have your revenge."

"Ah, so young. So innocent. So you think that True Love is all it takes to have a happy ending, do you my lad? Let us see if you are right. Captain, tell me, what boon will you ask of our Lady Swan, mm? Was it not my death? Be truthful, boy, the Fae know when you are lying."

Hook glanced at the Lady, and then down at the toes of his boots. "It was, yes. I would ask her to destroy you, Crocodile."

"So ask, my lad! No time like the present, and I am here! Destroy me, Lady Swan. End my reign of tyranny and power."

She glanced back, her green eyes haunted. "You must say it, Captain. You must wish it."

He remembered the blood of mortal women staining the hem of her white gown, and the hollowness of her eyes then, but still he obeyed.

"I wish the Crocodile dead at your hands, Lady Swan. This is the boon I ask of the ruler of the Underground."

The Lady took a deep breath and flexed her hands, holding them out to the Dark One, ready to squeeze the life from him before all of their eyes.

"Look away, Henry," Hook said, quietly.

"No, young sir, this is an education. Watch and see what mortality looks like," the Crocodile jeered.

A long moment passed in silence, and still the imp grinned his knowing grin.

"I cannot," the Lady said, finally, lowering her hands in disbelief. "I cannot kill him."

Hook's eyes went wide. "You cannot lie and you said-"

"You forget, Captain, the terms of your agreement, do you not? The Lady would owe you a boon should you make it through the Labyrinth unscathed. She would protect you, and if she was forced to save you from death, it would be she who could ask a boon of you, do you not recall?"

He did. He recalled with perfect clarity the Lady standing between him and certain death by dragon fire. He had lost his revenge in that moment, and he had not seen it.

"I could kill you, and the Lady asked it of me," Hook said, the idea occurring to him in a moment. He turned to her and held out his hook. "Ask it of me, and it is done, my Lady."

The Dark One giggled again. "And will you ask it of him, Lady? Would you see me dead, bleeding at your feet? Think of all the evil I have wrought, would it not be a kindness to the world?"

The Lady's face was a mask of pain, both Fae and Human. "Were you gone from the world, creature, many things would be better. You are a villain and the purveyor of pain.

"And yet…" She turned toward Hook. "And yet I cannot see a life ended on my behalf. I am sorry, Captain."

"And so I have my revenge." The Dark One was practically singing. "The Pirate remains at my mercy to hunt and kill at my leisure. The princess might live with her love for such time as his clock continues to tick, but she will always know that time is not her friend. Only I win, do you not see? Checkmate."

The room lay silent for the space of one slow Fae heartbeat.

"No. I still have a boon to ask," the Lady said. "I still have one final move to make, Dark One, and you have not yet seen everything."

She turned toward Hook. "Captain, the boon I would ask is for you to take me to the kingdom of my father and mother in your realm. I would ask that I be allowed to see them, if they live, and if they do not, that I be allowed to kneel at their graves. Will you grant it me?"

Hook frowned. He could not see how the Lady's visiting the palace of Misthaven would thwart the Dark One's plans, but he nodded.

"It shall be done, my Lady."

"So my boon is asked and promised, meaning that you, Captain Hook, have no obligations to me, nor to the Fae. What I ask next I ask only as Emma, and I ask it to you, Captain. The man, not the pirate. May I ask?"

Hook's confusion deepened, but he nodded for the Lady to continue.

"Be my consort, Captain. Be my companion, my lover, my friend. Remain with me through all my immortal days or allow me to share in your mortal life, dying when you do. Grant me your company and allow me to be your protection. When in the Underground, you will be Lord, and when I am in the realms of men, I will be your Lady. My powers are at your disposal, and any person who would threaten you threatens me."

"No!" the Dark One cried.

"Yes!" Henry shouted.

Hook said nothing.

The Lady stood waiting, her face showing no expression, no trepidation, though her eyes glowed bright with strange light.

For a long moment they stood, the Faerie and the Man, only looking at each other, only gauging what it was that was being offered, what it was that would be taken.

"Yes," he said, softly. "If you would have me, my Lady, I would be your man."

"Emma," she said, softly. "My name is Emma."

"And mine is Killian," he answered. "And if you would have me, Emma, I would consider it an honour."

"The honour, Killian, is mine." Emma reached out her hand and Killian took it in his, and with that touch the pact was sealed.

The Dark One screamed and flew across the room. Seemingly from nowhere a knife was in his hand and he plunged it into Emma's heart.

"You think I did not imagine this? You think me so blind?"

Emma gasped, and Hook could see the spread of red-black blood over the front of her white gown.

"How?" Hook cried as the stain spread. "You cannot kill-"

"I have been at the beck and call of the Fae for three-hundred years, Pirate. You think I do not carry on my person cold iron? You have lost. Everything you thought was yours is gone, Killian Jones. You will waste away here in the Underground until even your name is forgotten."

"You forget, Dark One, that the child of prophecy is the child of two worlds."

Hook and the Dark One turned to see the Lady drawing the blade from her chest. The blood continued to seep out for a moment, then slowed to a trickle, and then stopped. The blade clattered to the floor beside her.

"It would seem, I have remained sufficiently mortal that cold iron does no harm to me, and sufficiently Fae that my heart cannot be so pierced. Go from this place, Dark One. Do not come here again, and do not seek to harm that which is mine."

The Dark One took a step back from her, afraid for the first time.

"Power that great does not come without a price, _my Lady_," he said, a sarcastic emphasis on the last two words. "You may find it more costly than you anticipated."

"If so, the price will be mine to pay. Go."

"As you wish, my Lady." The Dark One vanished with a smell of sulphur and a flash of red smoke.

In his absence, the room became, in a moment, too quiet. Emma and Killian were faced, suddenly, with the agreement they had made and the revelations of the last hour.

They looked at each other shyly, not quite ready to meet the other's eyes, but too aware of the other to quite look away. The silence became, after a few moments, awkward for them both.

Henry, however, came to their rescue.

"Does that mean we get to go on a pirate ship?"

~?~?~?~?~

Emma, Killian, and Henry stood in the receiving chamber of the Palace of Misthaven. It had taken nearly six months of petitions, but Emma had finally been granted an audience with the Dowager Queen and the Prince Consort, her mother and father.

It had surprised her- though it should not have done- to discover that her parents were nearly ninety years old. She had thought, somehow, that they would be the same as they had been when last she had seen them but, as they made their way down the great hall, she could see that they were not.

Snow White was still small and straight-backed, her face still round and her eyes still clear, but her hair was no longer as black as the night, and her lips were no longer as red as a rose. The smooth skin of her face was now fragile and papery and pale.

Prince David was still tall, though he stooped now as he had never done when Emma had known him. His shoulders were broad, but instead of his courageous stride forward, he limped slightly- his left leg was partially lame. His blue eyes were nearly white with cataracts, but his smile was the same as Emma remembered.

Emma, Killian, and Henry all knelt, as they must when approached by royalty, but Snow White had seen her, and Emma found herself face-to-face with the queen, who was kneeling in front of her as well.

"Emma? My darling Emma? How can it possibly be you?" Snow White asked. "You look just the same but… but my darling, it has been fifty years!"

"Emma?" Prince David asked, squinting in the direction from which his wife's voice had emanated. "What do you mean? How can it be Emma?"

"You…" Emma whispered, tears filling her eyes as she looked into the eyes of the queen. "You remember me?"

"Oh my darling girl, how could we forget?"

For the first time in half a century, Emma found herself enfolded in the arms of her mother.

~?~?~?~?~

Three days later, Queen Snow and Prince David had died, together, in their sleep.

King Neal stood vigil over them, and at the funeral he was surrounded by his wife Tamara and his many children and grandchildren, all of whom wept at the passing of greatness.

In the back of the great royal chapel, Emma, Henry, and Killian sat unseen. Emma's face was an expressionless mask, but Henry wept openly. Killian wrapped his left arm around Emma, his hook at her waist, and laid his right hand on Henry's shoulder, squeezing to bolster the lad.

When the words had been said and the mortal remains of one of the great love stories of all time had been laid to rest under the ground, the trio returned to the Jolly Roger, moored in the harbour.

Emma found Henry below decks, still sniffling, but finally seeming to return to his usual cheerful self.

"Henry, dear heart," she said, sitting down beside him, "you and I must speak."

He blinked and looked at her, surprised to find her so serious.

"You know that I do not age, and as my consort, Killian will not do so either. But we have returned to the realm of men, and you will. You will not remain ten years old forever and I had thought… I had wondered if there was something else that you wanted from your life. Piracy is well and good but, if you wanted to be a writer or a banker or a soldier… you could be, if you wanted. You need not stay with us, if you wanted something else."

Henry frowned for a moment, thinking about this, and Emma sat quiet beside him, allowing him all the time he could want.

"Do you know?" he said, slowly. "I think I'd like to try all of it. I want to be a pirate for now, but perhaps in a year or two I'll go to school. Perhaps for a time I will be a writer, and a banker, and a soldier, and a thousand other things too. Do you think I could do that?"

Emma smiled. "Henry Mills, I believe that you can be anything you want in all the world."

~?~?~?~?~

On the prow of the Jolly Roger he stood, back-lit by the sun looking out toward the horizon. A stark, black silhouette of a man, observing that which he loves.

She stood back from him, still afraid of what it was between them- a power and force greater than any she had ever felt and far beyond her ability to control, and still so new to them both. For all that it had been her idea to acknowledge True Love, still she was shy with him, afraid that he would regret the decision made in haste.

He seemed to sense her presence, however and turned to look at her. Face shadowed, she could see more details, including the welcoming smile on his mouth as he held out his hand to her.

When she took it, he drew her into his side, tucked up against him as though he protected her, and not the other way around.

He bent his head toward her and kissed her, long and slow and sweet. He tasted of rum and salt, and she of apples and honey, and still it was as powerful as ever, but a slower, steadier power. Not lightning, but water, which chips away at all things, given enough time.

And time they had, Killian and Emma. All the time in all the worlds.


End file.
